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Lot Essay
During the 1740s through the end of the 1750s, these porcelain-mounted French clocks were popular throughout Europe. Their success was due primarily to the efforts of the Parisian marchands-merciers such as Lazare Duraux, who ordered porcelain pieces to be fitted into the bronze mounts, most notably the figures and flowers from the Meissen and Vincennes factories. The shepherd and animals are by Meissen's model Master, J. J. Kändler, who was responsible for creating these figures, a fashion which began as table decoration. An identical Meissen figure, with different glazes, can be found in the Palazzo Pitti (see T. Clarke, Le porcellane tedesche di Palazzo Pitti, 1999, p. 156). An identical example of the large sheep was sold in the collection of C. H. Fischer, J.M. Heberle, Cologne, 22-25 October, 1906, lot 671.
The Vincennes factory was established in 1745 to compete with Meissen, and these flowers were one of their earliest and most successful productions. In 1749 Marie-Josèphe de Saxe, just after her wedding to the Dauphin, sent a vase of flowers as a present to her father, Augustus the Strong in to Dresden to demonstrate the fine examples the French factory was producing. They remained a popular form of decoration, used in vases, clocks and most often in lighting fixtures. A similar clock at Waddesdon Manor is illustrated in G. de Bellaigue, The James A. De Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor: Furniture, Clocks and Bronzes, 1974, vol. I, p. 98.
Benoist Gérard
Benoist II Gérard and his son, Jean-Benoist, collaborated together under the same signature from 1743 until the former's death in 1758. By 1748 they were located on the rue Dauphine and in 1752 they moved to the quai Conti. For two other Vincennes and Meissen-mounted clocks by Gérard see P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule Français: du moyen age au XXe siècle, Paris, 1997, pp. 140, 142.
The Vincennes factory was established in 1745 to compete with Meissen, and these flowers were one of their earliest and most successful productions. In 1749 Marie-Josèphe de Saxe, just after her wedding to the Dauphin, sent a vase of flowers as a present to her father, Augustus the Strong in to Dresden to demonstrate the fine examples the French factory was producing. They remained a popular form of decoration, used in vases, clocks and most often in lighting fixtures. A similar clock at Waddesdon Manor is illustrated in G. de Bellaigue, The James A. De Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor: Furniture, Clocks and Bronzes, 1974, vol. I, p. 98.
Benoist Gérard
Benoist II Gérard and his son, Jean-Benoist, collaborated together under the same signature from 1743 until the former's death in 1758. By 1748 they were located on the rue Dauphine and in 1752 they moved to the quai Conti. For two other Vincennes and Meissen-mounted clocks by Gérard see P. Kjellberg, Encyclopédie de la Pendule Français: du moyen age au XXe siècle, Paris, 1997, pp. 140, 142.